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What the? Ok, fine, fair enough - people have been calling that creepy masked Burger King King-dude creepy pretty much since he first appeared. And if they didn't, BK made sure they would by creating a Darth Vader-esque ad starring their plastic masked hero, embracing his holy creepyness.

So, perhaps their thought here was to allow BK fans to embrace their inner creeps and run around screaming "WHOPPERS! MUST EAT WHOPPERS!"... But, I just don't think it has the same ring to it as "BRAINS! Must eat braaaainsss!", and lacking undead zombie features, BK's King just can't get that creepy, even if he might try.

Ok, fine I'll post it, even though I think this is a Badlander that isn't really a proper Badlander, since so many are emailing me about this. Sure I made some accusing caughs when I posted the recent comhem campaign, but this isn't a flat out copycat campaign. Might be inspired by Wendy however, it wouldn't be the first time Wendy Kaufman inspired an ad campaign. As the story goes, her boundless energy and willingness to reply to all the Snapple Fan Mail is what made her a national Snapple icon in the first place.

When it was discovered that Kaufman had been answering Snapple fan-mail in her free time (because nobody in the office wanted to do it themselves), their brand new advertising agency, Kirshenbaum & Bond, developed a campaign around her energetic personality.

So, the question I ask you dear readers, is do you think this is a homage, inspired by or a real Badlander? What do you think? Compare commercials inside.

This ad, showing Jesus snapping a picture of a bunch of nuns with the Samsung SL310W camera, was published in Lebanese newspaper Al Mostakbal last week.

The ad has been called "an attack against Christian symbols", bound to happen as soon as Jesus is involved, but here's the kicker - the ad agency FP7 who created it, doesn't have the Samsung account.
Sunny Hwang, the president of Samsung Electronics Levant, said to Brandrepublic "At no time was Samsung Electronics aware of these advertisements and the company has not approved or commissioned FP7 to create any advertising campaigns. "

At the recent Dubai Lynx awards, FP7 picked up a gold, a few silvers and even the ad agency of the year award but after this little mishap, the agency (and their work) is being investigated by the award organisers and they might get stripped of all their honors.

At what point is it ever a good idea to create, and actually run campaigns for clients that you don't have? The spec turned ghost ad epidemic seems to be getting worse by the minute here - in some cases I understand how it happens. Say, for example, you have an idea approved by the local branch of a worldwide brand which gets nixed the moment the global director gets a whiff of it. Or, you were way too exited when you submitted spec work here that you forgot to tell us it was spec and the worlds adblogs operate under the assumption that it's real (please don't do that).

There are places you can show off spec work, for example the London International IDA, and new awards for work that dies on the foam core is popping up like mushrooms every day, even we have a spec work category here so we don't delete submissions, even when the client does a u-turn after you've spent a week on the shoot creating that great campaign.

Remember this idea? It was created by They for Coffee Connection (an old client of mine actually, we did Fax ideas which tells you how long ago that was). They used "WiFi headlines" to nudge people into getting another coffee, or maybe buy a tasty muffin - the customer would ask what the WiFi network was named and the barista could reply "BuyAnotherCoffeeAlready" and mean it. Very funny. So clever that They won Silver in the Epica awards 2008 with it.

PETA are into recycling now, or simply running short on shocking ideas involving nude women. They staged a naked protest outside the naked chef's restaurant, with pregnant women caged in the same cages that pigs live in their entire lives.
So why is Jamie a target? Because he's encouraging people to "save our bacon" by buying British pig meat .

Now, we know that Jamie is aware of the horrors behind factory farming in Europe (he even has a campaign against it), but we're hoping he'll realize the obvious: That the best way to stop cruelty to animals is to stop eating animals—including British ones. Good thing we've got friends in the U.K. who are only too happy to educate Mr. Oliver on the horrors of all factory farms.

So the refreshing new twist here is that PETA are attacking allies, since Jamie is for the humane treatment of animals that become food - BBC reports:

The spokesman for the chef said: "They do seem to be protesting against somebody who is trying to help the situation.
"In the programme we never said that the British pig farming industry is completely whiter than white, we did a very balanced programme."

Our pals at agency spy have found these gems via The Berrics, however Agency Spy's efforts in reaching BBDO Mexico for comment were fruitless. The Berrics, which is run by pro skaters Steve Berra and Eric Koston, has posted the entire snickers commercial on their site calling it "BBDO Atrocity", which should get most skater fans noticing it. (also, it's better quality so you might as well check it out there).

Ah. I often argue that the media being identical doesn't mean that the idea is identical. Here on the other hand, what differs seems to be only the art directors choice of painting the city skyline as seen from above, vs on the sides of the pool. I don't care if they're intentional copies of each other, I'm more interested in which execution do you think is better?

The Coca Cola owned Oasis drink brand campaign about "Cactus kid" and his pregnant girlfriend has been banned by the ASA in the UK.

The ending to the story was chosen by Cactus kid fans at www.runcactuskidrun.com and aired the 22 August during the Big Brother show in the UK - making this a toothless ban indeed since the campaign has already officially ended anyway. This ad, it seems, was the final straw - the campaign received 32 complaints, which is apparently enough to get something off the air. It does make sense to kick Oasis a little for acting as if it is a relpacement for regular water. That ain't healthy.

Watch the final ad inside, after the jump, folks!
The Coca Cola owned Oasis drink brand campaign about "Cactus kid" and his pregnant girlfriend has been banned by the ASA in the UK.

The ending to the story was chosen by Cactus kid fans at www.runcactuskidrun.com and aired the 22 August during the Big Brother show in the UK - making this a toothless ban indeed since the campaign has already officially ended anyway. This ad, it seems, was the final straw - the campaign received 32 complaints, which is apparently enough to get something off the air. It does make sense to kick Oasis a little for acting as if it is a relpacement for regular water. That ain't healthy.

When you are about to have a party, you might want to let the neighbors know with a few well placed notes. When you are a brand or night-club desperate to get attention, you might hire an agency to create these hand written "sorry we're having a party" notes.

That's how we ended up with the battle of the apology flyers. Martin Schori at Dagens Media just spotted the flyer on the left the other day - it's an apology from the nightclub Ambassadeur which announces that the Ibiza famous DJ Roger Sanchez will be playing there, and to soothe any hard feelings with the neighbors there's even some earplugs attached to the note. As soon as I saw that I recalled the K-rauta "yard party" flyers from this summer. Aside from using flyers as the medium, the "we're sorry, we will be having a party" message is the same exact idea as well. Back to the drawing board kids, and while you are there thinking, contemplate what ad creep is and how annoying it can get as commercial messages gobble up the free space previously used for people rather than corporations.

The Vodafone radio advertisement was banned after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that the 'disclaimer' was too difficult for listeners to understand as it was read very fast. You can listen to it at the BBC website

contended that the radio advertising standard codes made no mention at which speed the legal terminology should be delivered.
They also said they did not believe their advertisement to be deceptive and in contravention of advertising legislation.